Florian Bellanger (born 20 April 1968) is a French

pastry chef A pastry chef or pâtissier (; the French female version of the word is pâtissière ), is a station chef in a professional kitchen, skilled in the making of pastries, desserts, breads and other baked goods. They are employed in large hotels, bi ...

, formerly the executive pastry chef at the famous Parisian pastry and candy shop,

Fauchon Fauchon is a French gourmet food and delicatessen company that was founded in 1886 in Paris, France. Fauchon is considered a major reference in contemporary French gourmet foods, and it had 81 outlets in operation around the world as of 2019. ...

. He is a permanent judge on the

Food Network Food Network is an American basic cable channel owned by Television Food Network, G.P., a joint venture and general partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery Networks (which holds a 69% ownership stake of the network) and Nexstar Media Group ...

's competition series ''

Cupcake Wars ''Cupcake Wars'' is an American reality competition series that premiered on December 27, 2009, on cable television network Food Network. The show, which is based on creating unique and professional-style cupcakes, was hosted by Justin Willman a ...

'', appearing in over nine seasons and 135 episodes to date.

Early career

Bellanger grew up in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

and spent much of his free afternoons baking for his family. However, a childhood chocolate

allergy Allergies, also known as allergic diseases, refer a number of conditions caused by the hypersensitivity of the immune system to typically harmless substances in the environment. These diseases include hay fever, food allergies, atopic derma ...

prevented him from enjoying sweets and desserts for six years, which temporarily discouraged his desire to bake. At age 15, Bellanger applied to one of Paris's prestigious pastry schools, the ("Paris school of table skills"), but was rejected for being a year too young. By 1986, he graduated from the school with a specialization in pastry cooking and a specialty in chocolate and

ice cream Ice cream is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a snack or dessert. It may be made from milk or cream and is flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit such as str ...

; he now says chocolate is his favorite ingredient and admires its versatility, claiming it is "fun" and something "taken for granted." Before starting his own company, Bellanger was the executive pastry chef at

and oversaw 24 other pastry chefs at its Tea Salon flagship store in New York City, a "legendary French Epicurean emporium" of cakes,

cookie A cookie is a baked or cooked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, n ...

s and

sorbet Sorbet (), also called "water ice", is a frozen dessert made using ice combined with fruit juice, fruit purée, wine, liqueur, honey, etc. Generally sorbets do not contain dairy ingredients, while sherbets do. Etymology The word "sorbet" e ...

s. There, he became known for creating inventive combinations of flavors outside of the norms of tradition, such as

éclair An éclair is a pastry made with choux dough filled with a cream and topped with chocolate icing. The dough, which is the same as that used for profiterole, is typically piped into an oblong shape with a pastry bag and baked until it is crisp ...

s flavored with

orange zest Zest is a food ingredient that is prepared by scraping or cutting from the rind of unwaxed citrus fruits such as lemon, orange, citron, and lime. Zest is used to add flavor to foods. In terms of fruit anatomy, the zest is obtained from the fl ...

passion fruit ''Passiflora edulis,'' commonly known as passion fruit, is a vine species of passion flower native to southern Brazil through Paraguay and northern Argentina. It is cultivated commercially in tropical and subtropical areas for its sweet, seedy ...

coconut The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family ( Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the ...

and

raspberry The raspberry is the edible fruit of a multitude of plant species in the genus ''Rubus'' of the rose family, most of which are in the subgenus '' Idaeobatus''. The name also applies to these plants themselves. Raspberries are perennial with w ...

marshmallow Marshmallow (, ) is a type of confectionery that is typically made from sugar, water and gelatin whipped to a solid-but-soft consistency. It is used as a filling in baking or normally molded into shapes and coated with corn starch. The sugar c ...

cake, Toulouse violet ice cream and raspberry-

chili pepper Chili peppers (also chile, chile pepper, chilli pepper, or chilli), from Nahuatl '' chīlli'' (), are varieties of the berry-fruit of plants from the genus ''Capsicum'', which are members of the nightshade family Solanaceae, cultivated for ...

. From 1991 to 1994, he was under the command of famous French pastry chef

Pierre Hermé Pierre Hermé (; born 20 November 1961) is a French pastry chef and chocolatier. He began his career at the age of 14 as an apprentice to Gaston Lenôtre. Hermé was awarded the title of World's Best Pastry Chef in 2016 by The World's 50 Best Re ...

and was also the executive pastry chef for Fauchon's flagship store in

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...

from 1994 to 1996. Bellanger was pastry chef of the world-renowned (three Michelin stars) restaurant

Le Bernardin Le Bernardin is a French seafood restaurant in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Gilbert Le Coze and his sister Maguy Le Coze started the restaurant in Paris in 1972, where it was called Les Moines de St. Bernardin. They restarted the resta ...

from 1996 to 2001, where his desserts were described as "light and dreamy" by

Ruth Reichl Ruth Reichl (; born 1948), is an American chef, food writer and editor. In addition to two decades as a food critic, mainly spent at the ''Los Angeles Times'' and ''The New York Times'', Reichl has also written cookbooks, memoirs and a novel, and ...

of ''The New York Times''.

Career

Bellanger is now the chef and owner of Mad Mac Macaron
Mad Mac NYC
"the Authentic French

Macaron A macaron ( , ) or French macaroon ( ) is a sweet meringue-based confection made with egg white, icing sugar, granulated sugar, almond meal, and food colouring. The macaron is traditionally held to have been introduced in France by the Ital ...

s and Madeleines" an acclaimed French cookie and pastry company, which he helped fund in 2006. Mad Mac serves retail, food service, and hospitality industries and has been recognized as a leader in quality and innovation in the Macaron industry.https://www.starchefs.com/cook/chefs/bio/florian-bellanger Bellanger is a member of City Harvest's Food Council and a guest chef at the

French Culinary Institute The International Culinary Center was a private for-profit culinary school headquartered in New York City. In 2020, it merged into the Institute of Culinary Education, also in New York City. It was founded as The French Culinary Institute by D ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, New York. He also spends his free time donating to charities such as C-CAP Careers Through Culinary Arts Progra
C-CAP Home
the

Wolfgang Puck Wolfgang Johannes Puck (born July 8, 1949) is an Austrian-American chef and restaurateur. Early life and career Puck was born in Sankt Veit an der Glan, Austria. He learned cooking from his mother, who was a pastry chef. He took the surname o ...

Charity and the Jean-Louis Palladin Foundation.

Recognition

Bellanger was named one of the 10 Best Pastry Chefs in America in 2003 and 2004 by ''Pastry Art & Design'' magazine. In 2000 and 2001, the

James Beard Foundation The James Beard Foundation is a New York City-based national non-profit culinary arts organization named in honor of James Beard, a prolific food writer, teacher, and cookbook author, who was also known as the "Dean of American Cookery." The prog ...

acclaimed Bellanger's accomplishments with a nomination for "Outstanding Pastry Chef." He is also the Jury President of the US Pastry Competition which is held every February in NYC, and has been featured on many networks including

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

, and

Martha Stewart Living ''Martha Stewart Living'' is a magazine and former television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of ...

. Bellanger's cake and pastry works have received attention in various magazines and publications including ''

House Beautiful ''House Beautiful'' is an interior decorating magazine that focuses on decorating and the domestic arts. First published in 1896, it is currently published by the Hearst Corporation, who began publishing it in 1934. It is the oldest still-publish ...

'', ''

Martha Stewart Weddings ''Martha Stewart Weddings'' is an online weddings magazine published by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. ''Martha Stewart Weddings'' was launched as an annual publication in 1994, and was expanded to quarterly in 1999. It was the second magazine ...

'', ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'', ''

Brides A bride is a woman who is about to be married or who is newlywed. When marrying, the bride's future spouse, (if male) is usually referred to as the ''bridegroom'' or just ''groom''. In Western culture, a bride may be attended by a maid, brides ...

'', ''

Modern Bride Modern may refer to: History *Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Philosoph ...

'', '' GQ'' magazine, ''

Time Out Time-out, Time Out, or timeout may refer to: Time * Time-out (sport), in various sports, a break in play, called by a team * Television timeout, a break in sporting action so that a commercial break may be taken * Timeout (computing), an enginee ...

magazine'', ''

People A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...

'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

InStyle ''InStyle'' was an American monthly women's fashion magazine founded in 1994. It was published in the United States by Dotdash Meredith. In February 2022, it was announced that InStyle would cease print publications and move to a digital-only ...

'' magazine, ''Pastry Art & Design'', ''Food Arts'', ''Chocolatier'' magazine, ''The Nibble'', '' Delta Sky'' magazine and ''

New York Magazine ''New York'' is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, and with a particular emphasis on New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to ''The New Yorker'', ...

'', and PastryScoop.com.

Awards

"Outstanding Pastry Chef of the Year" Nomination 2000 and 2001 * 10 Best Pastry Chefs of America 2003 and 2004 (''Pastry Art and Design'' magazine) * Lifetime Achievement Award - 2013 US Pastry Competition * Hall of Fame Inductee - Dessert Professional Magazine 2013 * Chevalier de l'Ordre du Merite Agricole (French Government)

References

External links

École de Paris de Métiers de la Table official website

Florian Bellanger, MadMac MacaronsCupcake Wars
* fr:Cupcake Warsbr>Mad Mac NYCPastry Art & Design: Florian Bellanger—Breaking the Mold20 Unique Wedding Cake Shapes Contemporary Couples Should Consider
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bellanger, Florian Living people Chefs from Paris Pastry chefs 1968 births French television chefs